I Fell For a Fake Mac Scam…

February 17, 2016

Fake makeup scams seem to be as old as the internet themselves. We all know the places to avoid purchasing, the too good to be true mantra, and laugh at those who were so easily fooled. I mean what did they expect right? And then it happened; I saw an offer, jumped on it, and a while later some very dodgy products turned up at my door.

So how did this come to be?

Imagine the scene, it’s Boxing Day, I’m hanging out at my boyfriend’s parent’s house. Casually browsing the internet, checking out the New Years Day sales, when I see an advert pop up on Facebook. It’s for a website I’ve never heard of, but it looks legit. I mean, it’s an official Facebook advert so it has to be right? The offer was for 50% off Mac lipsticks, it sounded incredible. The site looked genuine, the post had plenty of comments and was getting plenty of attention, the facebook page itself had plenty of posts and content. The actual website had a return policy, contact emails and a UK address, the whole works. I did think it was a little odd that they mainly sold clothes but hey, we’ve all seen websites like this before. So I excitedly placed an order for two Mac lipsticks, Heroine, that I have been after for well over a year, and Ruby Woo, that I picked up because hey, it’s basically 2 for 1 right!

There was a warning on the site that it would take a while to arrive due to high traffic levels, and with it being sale time this wasn’t surprising. I waited patiently. I even moved house in the time it took to arrive, but around 6 weeks later it arrived.

Now I thought something wasn’t right straight away, as the package had a customs form on it stating it had come from Sweden. A bit odd I thought, but maybe that’s where their warehouse was or something, who knows. Then I took a look at the product itself:

Now the packaging is incredible for a copy, I have to give them that. Both the box and the bullet tube are identical to the real deal as far as I can tell. It even feels the same weight and quality, and the lids click into place n the same way, it all seemed like good news.

Then the first warning sign. As many of you know, Mac lipsticks have a very distinct scent, so I gave them a good sniff out of habit. Now they do have a sweet scent, so the scammers had gone to some effort, but it definitely wasn’t the signature Mac scent. Worriedly I twisted the lipstick up and noticed two things straight away, the shiny consistency (these are supposed to be matte lipsticks) and the pronounced seam. Honestly, it looks like the pretend lipstick you get for children to play dress up.

Which as it turns out is pretty accurate, because it has the pigmentation of it too. Just look at this! It’s not even slightly usable, the colours are wrong, there’s no pigment, and it feels oily and just plain awful! I can’t even really explain it but it’s just plain wrong, it’s actually worse than it looks in these pics.

So there you have it, sometimes if a deal feels too good to be true it’s because it is. I did try to contact the company but unsurprisingly received no reply. The image disappeared from Facebook a few weeks ago, and as of yesterday, the website has disappeared.

Kariss is an idiot who falls for makeup scams, don’t be like Kariss.

Have you ever fallen for one of these scams? Also, if anyone has any fun ideas of what the hell I can do with these lipsticks let me know! I’m so mad I don’t want to throw them out, but have no possible use for them.